The Holy Books

Our Mission

Globally distribute a free comprehensive curriculum for becoming molded by Christ through His Scriptures

What makes our ministry unique?

Everything we do is designed to reach people who are not well served conventionally. We reach the overlooked colloquial Welsh speaker whose language is too small to matter. We reach the disconnected urban professional whose Bible reading feels too controversial. We reach the frustrated believer with dyslexia whose Bible reading seems too slow. We reach the isolated house church in Oman where Christian materials in public are too dangerous. We reach the confused believer struggling to make sense of Numbers whose questions seem too dumb to ask.

How do we do this?

1. We find the gaps.
2. We try to bridge those gaps without the jargon that turns people off and Internet censors on.
3. We try to bridge those gaps with just the right mix of media and technology for our intended audience.
4. We leverage our unique assets to reach those whom other ministries do not reach.
5. We pray that God would make it all work.

Our History

This ministry began in November 2016 when Common Devotional was initially published. Introduced during a Sunday School class on personal piety at Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA, its modest goal was to help those folks experience what days framed by morning and evening personal worship felt like.

Many of us in the contemporary church often feel insulated from Scripture and isolated from God in our daily lives. How can Old Testament laws about planting seeds relate to me today? Isn't the Bible outdated? Why does God sometimes seem so mean? What if I just don't get much out of regularly reading my Bible? Our ancestors in the faith understood that it is we believers, not Scripture or God, who need to grow and adapt to overcome that felt distance. Their prescription was to worship the Lord in the morning when you rise and in the evening, to worship before you sleep. Such a worshipful approach to our lives and relationship with Christ changes us, even today.

A modular and modernized update of the famous 1662 Book of Common Prayer, Common Devotional soon began to take on a life of its own. Word of mouth spread its use to people beyond that Sunday School class. Requests were made to expand it for use by couples sharing devotional time together and for families around the supper table. The 1647 Directory for Family Worship, an integral part of the original Westminster Standards, was the basis for these family worship guides. That the Holy Spirit was working through this historic means of grace in powerful ways soon became apparent. Over the ensuing years, The Holy Books became a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit ministry with a global reach supported by two churches and more than 150 volunteers, but then suddenly we received legal threats from Crossway both in the UK and America over our use of the ESV.

We were told to go offline or else. The datacenter leasing servers to us was also notified and legally threatened if they did not pull the plug on us. In response, we did three things. First, Matt built out his own small datacenter to host our productions and keep us online. Second, we legally dissolved our nonprofit organization and stopped accepting donations. Third, and most importantly, we began our massive effort at producing a free as in liberty English translation of the Bible that anyone anywhere can use for any purpose free from any copyright encumberance.

We still hold to our original emphasis on developing disciples in local churches through regular devotion to prayer and Scripture. It is now clear to us, however, that our greatest contribution will be our gift of a guaranteed copyright-free Bible translation. When we began, we asked Crossway for permission to use the ESV and explained our projects and plans. We were given not only permission but great assistance and encouragement. Crossway continues to claim that its goal is to provide the ESV "free through digital media everywhere and at any time." Our translation's copyleft license guarantees people the freedom to use, share and modify it as they see fit, and it guarantees that any derivative works from it will also guarantee these same usage rights in perpetuity. Our initial shock and anger at Crossway putting dollars ahead of discipleship has not abated.